Abraham Ruef known as Abe Ruef was an American lawyer and politician. He was in San Quentin penitentiary from 1911 to 1915.
Background
Abraham Ruef was born in San Francisco, the only son and the oldest of four children of Myer and Adele (Heruch) Ruef. His parents were French Jews who had come to California in 1862. His father became moderately wealthy in dry goods and real estate enterprises and was listed in the city directory as "capitalist. "
Education
The precocious Abraham graduated from the University of California in 1883, at the age of eighteen, with high honors. He studied classical languages, spoke several modern languages fluently, and found intense interest and pleasure in philosophy, art, and music. After graduating from the university's Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, he was admitted to the bar in 1886.
Career
Ruef's formal education and intellectual tastes were not the only aspects of his career which distinguished him from the ordinary American political boss. His Jewish ancestry was equally unusual; and he rose to power through his control of the only Union Labor party that ever gained complete control of an American city government. Moreover, a remarkably detailed knowledge of his activities is possible. His power was broken by one of the stubbornest and ablest graft prosecutions on record, and the transcripts of a long series of trials reveal the inner workings of boss government with unparalleled thoroughness. Ruef himself wrote a detailed and valuable set of memoirs while in prison for bribery.
"Abe" Ruef first entered San Francisco politics as an idealistic young reformer in the 1880's, but he soon became disillusioned and drifted into the corrupt machine of the local Republican bosses. When bitterness over the use of the police in the teamsters' and waterfront strike of 1901 led to the organization of the Union Labor party of San Francisco, Ruef opportunistically took control of the new party and secured the election of his friend Eugene E. Schmitz, a handsome musician, as mayor. In 1903 he repeated the victory.
Two years later, in spite of the fusion of Republicans and Democrats against him, and to his own great surprise, Ruef's entire Union Labor ticket was swept into office. As an attorney who was not a public official, Ruef received huge fees from several public utility corporations. This would have been within the law. But he was forced to divide his attorney's fees with members of the board of supervisors (the legislative body of San Francisco city and county) in order to ensure their votes for the privileges his corporate clients desired.
Early in 1906 Fremont Older, the crusading editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, planned a secret investigation with the approval of District Attorney William H. Langdon. Older persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt to lend the services of William J. Burns, the federal government's star detective, and Francis J. Heney, one of its best special prosecutors. Rudolph Spreckels, a reform-minded millionaire, and ex-mayor James D. Phelan provided money for a large detective force and other expenses far beyond the ordinary budget of the district attorney's office. By trapping some of the supervisors into taking bribes and promising them immunity Burns secured their full confessions to the payments they had received from Ruef, notably for their votes for a telephone company franchise and a street railway electrification privilege. Several leading public utilities executives were tried for bribery, but only Ruef went to prison in 1911.
After his release, brought about in large part by the efforts of his original adversary, Fremont Older, he built up a new fortune in real estate but lost it in the depression of the 1930's. Ruef never married. Long a sufferer from diabetes, he died suddenly at his home in San Francisco, probably of a heart attack. He was buried in the family plot in Eternal Home Cemetery at Colma, San Mateo County, California.